@ 2022-12-27: ONE LITTLE WORD

@ 2022-12-27—ONE LITTLE WORD 

What is the solution to the political, social, and religious confusion in the world? The Bible has a very plain answer: the coming Kingdom of God on earth!

When Jesus Christ rules as King of Kings, and those that are his with Him, today’s present profusion of religious and ethnic festivals and holy days simply will not exist. Gone will be Christmas, Easter, Halloween, the various Catholic “saints’ days”, and the like. Gone will be the Muslim and Hindu pilgrimages. Gone will be latter-day inventions such as Kwaanza. Gone will be every merely man-made religious celebration there is, in every country, of whatever origin.

When the Eternal [Y^ehawweh (יְהַ֘וֶּ֤ה), a Name that is a fascinating study of itself] revealed Himself to Israel, He gave them Ten Commandments. He then gave Israel statues and judgments—“case laws”—that showed how to apply the principles behind the Ten Commandments in specific circumstances. The Fourth Commandment—concerning the weekly Sabbath—had its own “case laws”, revealed in full in Leviticus 23. There we find the weekly Sabbath, the Festivals, and the Holy Days—the “appointed times” of the Eternal—listed together. “New moons”—the beginnings of the months in the calculated Hebrew calendar—are described elsewhere.

Were these “appointed times” meant only for ancient Israel? Not at all! Jesus Christ kept them with his disciples, and they taught others to keep them—Jews and Gentiles alike. When the Kingdom of God comes, everyone will keep them—particularly the Feast of Tabernacles (Zechariah 14:16-19).

It makes no sense that Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8), would have ancient Israel and Judah keep these “appointed times”, all nations under his rule in his Kingdom keep the same “appointed times”, and yet have his Church keep entirely different and syncretic “appointed times” between his first coming and his second coming. And yet, this is what “mainstream Christianity” would have us believe Jesus Christ is doing!

A striking reason why this false concept arose has to do with the writings of a prominent early Catholic theologian. What happened afterward, in the history of Christian religious observance, largely has to do with his omission of one little word found in a key verse of the Greek New Testament: Colossians 2:17! 

Tertullian’s Teaching on Colossians 2:16-17 

Here is what Wikipedia says about the originator of all false “mainstream” ideas about Colossians 2:16-17, and particularly about verse 17: 

Tertullian (/tərˈtʌliən/; Latin: Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus; c. 155 AD – c. 220 AD) was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He was an early Christian apologist and a polemicist against heresy, including contemporary Christian Gnosticism. Tertullian has been called “the father of Latin Christianity” and “the founder of Western theology”.

Tertullian originated new theological concepts and advanced the development of early Church doctrine. He is perhaps most famous for being the first writer in Latin known to use the term trinity (Latin: trinitas). 

Here is what Tertullian wrote concerning Colossians 2:16-17, as taken from the Loeb Edition’s translation of his original Latin text: 

Tertullian—Against Marcion—Bk. 5, Ch.19. 

Chap. XIX.—The Epistle to the Colossians. Time the Criterion of Truth and Heresy. Application of the Canon. The Image of the Invisible God Explained. Pre-Existence of Our Christ in the Creator’s Ancient Dispensations. What Is Included in the Fulness of Christ. The Epicurean Character of Marcion’s God. The Catholic Truth in Opposition Thereto. The Law Is to Christ what the Shadow Is to the Substance. 

Now tell me, Marcion, what is your opinion of the apostle’s language, when he says, “Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath, which is a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ?” (Col 2:16-17) We do not now treat of the law, further than (to remark) that the apostle here teaches clearly how it has been abolished, even by passing from shadow to substance—that is, from figurative types to the reality, which is Christ. The shadow, therefore, is His to whom belongs the body also; in other words, the law is His, and so is Christ. If you separate the law and Christ, assigning one to one god and the other to another, it is the same as if you were to attempt to separate the shadow from the body of which it is the shadow. Manifestly Christ has relation to the law, if the body has to its shadow.[i] 

Tertullian possibly was working with a Western, “Catholic” Greek New Testament text, like the 4^th-century manuscript used in Benjamin Wilson’s Emphatic Diaglott (1864).[ii] Otherwise (as I discuss further below), he himself was the originator of the above ideas, and several Greek manuscripts and early versions followed his lead. Barring proof to the contrary, I believe this is the best explanation of the facts.

Contrary to what is claimed in the preceding endnote from Wikipedia, one is hard pressed to find any printed Greek New Testament—even the critical Westcott and Hort edition, let alone the truly “popular” ones—which agrees in Colossians 2:17 with either the Diaglott or its source manuscript. Not only the Textus Receptus, but the Byzantine Text,[iii] the Majority Text, and modern critical texts I have seen (including Westcott and Hort and NA17[iv]), agree with each other and disagree with Tertullian, with the Codex Vaticanus (a 4^th-century western witness), with Jerome’s Latin Vulgate (another 4^th-century western witness), with the Syriac Peshitta[v] (a 5^th-century eastern witness),[vi] and with the Emphatic Diaglott.[vii]

While both Latin and Syriac Christianity attest to Tertullian’s reading (although the relevant versions arose later than his commentary), again it seems most likely that the reading began with Tertullian.[viii] Whatever the case, it is most unlikely that either early Eastern Greek or later Byzantine Christianity would have created a completely different reading—again, by adding “one little word”. Rather, “one little word” must have been omitted in early times by some scribes, and for a specific, plausible, and well-known reason.[ix] 

A Noun Phrase—or Not? 

After the fall of Second Temple Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Roman world—and with it over time, many professing Christians in both the West and the East—gained a deep hostility toward “anything Jewish” in religious observance. This began with the Passover, and then with the weekly Sabbath.

This “antinomian (anti-law)” approach had its roots in trends described by Paul, Peter, and Jude, as well as in the Book of Acts. We will not deal with these roots here. Rather, we will focus on how “one little word” makes all the difference in understanding what Colossians 2:16-17 says.

Let us begin simply, with these verses from the King James Version, with a slight correction [the] from the Greek: 

(Col 2:16 KJV) Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:

(Col 2:17 KJV) Which are a shadow of [the] things to come; but the body is of Christ. 

Despite its basis in the Textus Receptus, the KJV follows the reading of Tertullian.[x] What difference does that make?

Verse 17 lacks a clarifying verb in its last half. It must “borrow” one either from verse 16 (“to judge”) or from verse 17 (“to be”). Which verb? Part of the problem is that verses 16-17 form one sentence in the Greek. To divide them arbitrarily into verses is to bias the reader (or the translator) into accepting “to be” as the elliptical verb before the matter is examined in sufficient depth.

Tertullian’s Latin reading implies the Greek text [to de sooma Christou (τὸ δὲ σῶμα Χριστοῦ)], “but the body of Christ”. There is only one possible way to translate this reading: “but the body (is) of Christ”. That is, just as Tertullian and others have put it for so long, Christ is the “substance”, and the Sabbath, Festivals, Holy Days, and New Moons are “(mere) shadows” of Him (or rather of the “things to come” which He has fulfilled, as in Hebrews 10:1ff, referring to the sacrificial law in that context).

But the reading which admittedly is older, more accurate, and more complete (according to the modern critical texts) is [to de sooma tou Christou (τὸ δὲ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ)]. This is a noun phrase, which either must have an article before each noun or else use no articles at all. Either way, a verb cannot be inserted into it. The only possible way to translate this reading is “but (let) the Body of the Christ [i.e., the Church, as Paul says elsewhere several times in several ways] (judge these matters)”! How is it that every Greek New Testament scholar I have read overlooks this simple grammatical fact, one easy to confirm in the BDBG Lexicon on the definite article?[xi]

Paul “did away” with nothing in Colossians 2:16-17! Rather, he showed why the Sabbath, Festivals, Holy Days, and New Moons should be kept by true Christians. They portray God’s plan of salvation for both the living and the dead, a plan which is so little understood—“the things to come”, of which the Book of Hebrews discusses only the beginning. Most of these “things” have yet to be fulfilled either by Christ Personally or through His working with humankind!

But on the one hand, the whole Law of Moses concerning these days could not be kept by the scattered churches (above all, the command to assemble at Jerusalem—cf. John 4:21-24). On the other hand, it was not for proto-Gnostic outsiders (as in Colossae) to criticize Christians for how they kept God’s “appointed times”, or how they ate and drank either at those times or at any other times. Rather, the Church of God—“the Body of the Christ”—had the right and authority to judge such matters for its own people (just as Jesus told Peter and his fellow apostles).

One cannot account for the later addition of a word in verse 17. “Mainstream” Christianity (even in the Greek-speaking East) became more hostile toward God’s law over time, not less. Only if (as the rest of the Bible makes plain) Jesus, the original apostles, and Paul all upheld both God’s law and the Church’s authority to make judgments based on it could such a Greek reading as to de sooma tou Christou appear in Colossians 2:17, especially considering the issues which faced the Colossian Church at the time it was written.

Once upon a time, Greek-speaking Christians had to know perfectly well the difference between to de sooma tou Christou and to de sooma Christou. But hostility toward God’s law—in the guise of rejecting Judaism—became so prominent that the latter reading crept in. To this day, the latter reading influences literally every version that exists—even those based on the Textus Receptus, the Byzantine Text, the Majority Text, or the best critical texts. And barring proof to the contrary, it all began with Tertullian and his omission of one little word!

Think of what this means. Centuries of persecution of those who kept the Sabbath and Festivals (often to death), substitution of Gentile customs (or else mixtures of these with Christian ideas), rejection of both original and “mainstream” Christian customs and their substitution by entirely new inventions, and above all the progressive rejection of God’s plan of salvation for all of humanity—all could have been avoided had “but the Body of the Christ” been retained rather than “but the body of Christ”. On such small things does the history of the world so often turn! ###

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[i] Here is the original Latin text: Age iam, cum dicit, Nemo vos iudicet in cibo et potu et in parte diei festi et neomeniae et sabbati, quae est umbra futurorum, corpus autem Christi, quid tibi videtur, Marcion? De lege iam non retractamus, nisi quod et hic quemadmodum exclusa sit edocet, dum scilicet de umbra transfertur in corpus, id est de figuris ad veritatem, quod est Christus. Ergo et umbra eius cuius et corpus, id est et lex eius <cuius>5 et Christus. Segrega alii deo legem, et alii deo Christum, si potes aliquam umbram ab eo corpore cuius umbra est separare. Manifeste legis est Christus, si corpus est umbrae.

[ii] This is the manuscript Wilson used (Wikipedia): “The Codex Vaticanus (The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), designated by siglum B or 03 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 1 (von Soden), is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the majority of the Greek New Testament. It is one of the four great uncial codices.  Along with Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Sinaiticus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible. The codex has been dated palaeographically to the 4th century. / The manuscript became known to Western scholars as a result of correspondence between Erasmus and the prefects of the Vatican Library. Portions of the codex were collated by several scholars, but numerous errors were made during this process. The codex’s relationship to the Latin Vulgate was unclear and scholars were initially unaware of its value. This changed in the 19th century when transcriptions of the full codex were completed.  It was at that point that scholars realised the text differed significantly from the Textus Receptus. / Most current scholars consider Codex Vaticanus to be one of the most important Greek witnesses to the Greek text of the New Testament, followed by Codex Sinaiticus. Until the discovery by Tischendorf of Sinaiticus, Vaticanus was unrivalled. It was extensively used by Westcott and Hort in their edition of The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881. The most widely sold editions of the Greek New Testament are largely based on the text of the Codex Vaticanus.  Codex Vaticanus ‘is rightly considered to be the oldest extant copy of the Bible.’ The Codex is named after its place of conservation in the Vatican Library, where it has been kept since at least the 15th century. ”

[iii] However, the BYZ+ with Strong’s Numbers (edited originally by Robinson and Pierpoint and made available on e-Sword) agrees with Codex Vaticanus in this verse.

[iv] Griesbach, Vol. 2, p. 593, has “to de sooma Christou” in the main text but has “to de sooma tou Christou” (like the Textus Receptus) as a marginal reading. Tischendorf, p. 324 (who, while drawing upon many Greek manuscripts and ancient versions, appears to follow the parallel text of the Latin Vulgate where possible) has “to de sooma Christou”. However, the modern critical versions I have seen agree with the Textus Receptus. (See the main text for an explanation of these Greek phrases.)

[v] Wikipedia: “The Peshitta (Classical Syriac: ܦܫܺܝܛܬܳܐ or ܦܫܝܼܛܬܵܐ pšīṭta) is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition, including the Maronite Church,^[1] the Chaldean Catholic Church,^[2] the Syriac Catholic Church,^[3] the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Malabar Independent Syrian Church (Thozhiyoor Church), the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Syro-Malabar Church. / The consensus within biblical scholarship, although not universal, is that the Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac from Biblical Hebrew, probably in the 2nd century AD, and that the New Testament of the Peshitta was translated from the Greek, probably in the early 5th century.^[4][5] This New Testament, originally excluding certain disputed books (2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation), had become a standard by the early 5th century. The five excluded books were added in the Harklean Version (AD 616) of Thomas of Harqel.^[6][7][8]”

[vi] The Peshitta (as spelled in Hebrew consonants) has [pnr’ dyn mshch’ hw (פנרא דין משיחא הו)]. Glenn David Bauscher, the editor of The Peshitta Aramaic-English New Testament (p. 599) comments: “This verse is central to understanding Paul’s teaching about the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. ‘The Messiah is the Body’ of which the Old Covenant ordinances and precepts were mere ‘shadows’.” This essentially was Tertullian’s view. Given the relatively late date of the Peshitta NT (5^th century), presumably it was translated from a defective Greek text, much as the one(s) Tertullian (possibly) and Jerome used.

[vii] However, the Latin Vulgate agrees with “to de sooma Christou” (“corpus autem Christi”), so while Tertullian may have started the trend of using this reading, he was far from alone in Latin Christianity in using it.

[viii] Interestingly, Tertullian used an antinomian argument to counter the claims of an arch-antinomian, the infamous Marcion. But at least Tertullian acknowledged that “the law” has a certain validity next to Christ (allegedly, as the shadow has next to the body), and came from the same God that Christ did.

[ix] This passage is not the only one which has suffered apparent alteration by certain “antinomian” scribes. Consider Acts 18:21. “I must be all means keep this Feast which comes in Jerusalem” (said by Paul) is present in the Textus Receptus, the Byzantine Text, and the Majority Text, but is omitted by the Vulgate, the Ethiopic, the Codex Vaticanus, and the Westcott & Hort, NU, and NA21 critical Greek texts. The NET Bible, normally so thorough in its discussion of Greek variants, ignores this problem entirely. There is no easy way of accounting for the addition of this clause, but its omission is easy to explain: some did not want to admit clear evidence that Paul kept the Festivals and (both by word and by example) taught others to do so.

[x] This is not surprising, given how much the KJV’s editors looked to the Latin Vulgate for comparison.

[xi] Regrettably, I no longer have my copy of this massive edition, so I cannot give a page number.